Behind the Masthead: Alex McElroy

Leslie Verdugo: If asked by someone else, what would
you try to do to get out of the question about your position as International
Editor at HFR?

Alex McElroy: I would simply say that I select and
edit international work. If pressed on the question, I will artfully avoid
answering and put questions to the interviewer.

LV: What has been the most interesting part of your time as an
editor?

AM: I have been lucky enough to meet a few of our translators
one-on-one, connecting with them, sharing a beer. More generally, I love bringing
work that is widely read and respected in other countries to an American
audience, giving it the recognition it deserves.

LV: Now as a writer do you have a ritual for when you write?

AM: I do have one. So I take one of those Nature Valley
granola bars—meaning one of the two bars—and eat it while writing and drinking
coffee. I always leave a little coffee in the mug when I’m done writing for the
day, and the next morning, I pour fresh coffee over the remaining coffee, to
create continuity. I don’t wash the mug until I finish a story. But eventually
the coffee puddle is chunked with aged granola. Which is gross, and probably
why I write a lot of flash fiction.

LV: Where would your writing go if it grew legs?

AM: My writing would relocate to the storm drains, where stray
cats live. I pass these strays quite often, when I go for a walk; the stray,
those rusted storm drains, they’re a source of great inspiration.

LV: Which writer, past or present would you share a milkshake
with?

AM: Not Hemingway. And maybe—but no. Not Kafka. He “Fletcherized”
when he ate, meaning he’d chew each bite about 700 times. I wouldn’t have time
for that. I think I would go with Robert Walser, a German modernist poet. I
love how he sees the world. He would definitely appreciate the absurdity of two
grown men sharing a milkshake. And afterward, I’m sure he’d insist we go for a
walk. He was a notorious walker; in fact, one of Walser’s best stories—my
personal favorite—is called “The Walk.”

LV: What was the first story you ever attempted to write?

AM: As a kid I wrote this comic book series called
Undercovers. It was about a boy who was made miniature, for undisclosed
reasons, who must navigate the world beneath his covers. He befriends a monster
named in Lint. Lint looked nothing like lint. He resembled a stick figure with
a Pac-man head. Lint was comic relief, there to make fart jokes. Really, Under
Covers was about being a stranger in a strange land—and flatulence.

LV: So in the show How I
Met Your Mother Ted Mosby has a particular stubborn idea that he can pull
off wear red boots despite the naysayers. Now my question is do you have a pair
of red boots metaphorically speaking?

AM: I think I’m a great singer, but I haven’t seriously sung in
front of anyone since I was sixteen. Maybe I’m great—but most likely, I’m tone
deaf.

LV: What gives you strength?

AM: Bench presses and squats.

LV: Let me rephrase that. What gives you strength as a writer?

AM: As a writer, I’m driven by some unhealthy obsession to
prove myself through language. But it’s unclear why, or to whom, I need to prove
myself.

LV: How is your kitten?

AM: Helen? She’s great, but she loves Allegra, my girlfriend,
more than she loves me—Helen, to clarify, was my birthday present. The only one-on-one
time Helen and I get is in the early morning, when she’s hungry, or in the
afternoon before Allegra comes home.

LV: Where are you going after graduation? What’s next for you?

AM: Out of Tempe, out of Arizona.I’m applying for fellowships. I might work on
an island off the coast of New Hampshire. I might just go pick olives in
Greece.

_______________________________________________________________

Alex McElroy’s work
appears in Indiana Review, Gulf Coast,
Diagram, Passages North, Tin House, The Millions, and more work can be
found here.